I'm in my mid 30s (gulp) and married to a great guy. We live in Northern VA with our crazy hound dog Cady. We love to travel, eat great food, drink good wine, cheer for our favorite sports teams and have fun with friends. This blog is a collection of things - travel stories, DC happenings, home improvement projects, recipes, and all kinds of fun adventures we're having!

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Thursday, June 23, 2011

SAVOR

While we talk a lot about wine drinking, we are beer lovers as well.

On Friday, June 3 (I know, I'm behind...just go with it) we got dressed up and Team Fairfax headed to DC for SAVOR. SAVOR is a huge craft beer event that was held at the National Building Museum in DC.

According to their website, this year’s SAVOR featured 144 craft beers from breweries representing 32 states. Brewers enter a lottery to be able to participate, and this year 150 entries were made. They are selected at random and 72 were chosen. In order to enter, you must ensure that your brewery owner, brewmaster and/or "face of the brewery" will be able to attend and pour the beer. Each brewery pours 2 beers. Two thousand people a night attend - and it's held for 2 nights. Here are a few more stats from the evening:

72 craft breweries,

82,000 prepared menu items (not including cheese, oysters or sushi),

1,705+ gallons of beer,

20,000 pounds of ice,

2,000 attendees,

250 pounds of artisan cheese,

2,000 sushi rolls,

2,200 artisan chocolate truffles, and

2,600 oysters

They had food served in bite sized, small dishes set up all around the room. Each table had several different food options that were paired with the beer being poured at the specific table. Also, there was an oyster bar and a artisan cheese table. Some of the food items included: pork belly on a biscuit, braised beef short rib brochette, lamb sliders, mini apple pies, pork rillette with olive tapenade (delicious), crab croquettes, crispy tuna rolls, truffle tart, grilled hangar steak, hummus and pita, and a whole bunch of other things along the same lines.

It was quite a fun night. It was great to taste so many different beers, all though by the end of the night, it was hard to remember which one was which. The cheese bar was amazing - one of my favorite parts of the night. MK and I went from the first through to the last, tasting every one. YUM.

They sent everyone away with a special gift, a bottle of beer that was a collaboration project between Sam Adams and Dogfish Head, a rose water based brew called Flowers.

Photo from kegworks.com

While it was a very fun evening, husband and I decided that it was probably an every other year type of event. It's pretty expensive at $110 a ticket, plus cab fare back home. During the week leading up to the main event, since all of the big wigs from the major craft breweries are in town, all of the local beer bars and restaurants hold their own events. The boys all went to a few of those last year, and really enjoyed them. We decided that going to those one year, and the big event the next year would be the plan.